COVID-19 recovery response

Len Duvall: What strategic plans are in place in London to aid the capital’s recovery and what will the ‘new normal’ look like?

The Mayor: My team in City Hall has been working flat out to ensure that we’re responding to the different challenges created by Covid-19.We’re doing all we can to keep Londoners safe, informed and healthy. While it’s crucial that we focus on the emergency response, we also need to plan for the future of our city.
Getting this recovery right will be a team effort involving all of us at City Hall but also London councils, national Government, businesses, charities, major institutions like universities and of course, Londoners.
The scale of the challenge can’t be underestimated. We already have experts warning this will be an economic shock more severe than the global financial crisis of 2008. And that’s without the added and unnecessary challenge of a chaotic hard Brexit.
We will see certain sectors of the economy particularly badly hit - with tourism and hospitality some of the obvious ones. And we will likely see levels of unemployment that we haven’t experienced since the 1980s.
We’ve got to step up to the challenge to help the city recover. To help do that we have set up the London Recovery Board, chaired and constituted by myself and Cllr Peter John, the Chair of London Councils. The Minister for London, Paul Scully, will attend the Recovery Board on behalf of government.
The London Recovery Board will plan and oversee the capital’s wider economic and social long-term recovery, developing a strategy and plan of action to reshape London to be fairer, more equal, greener and more resilient than it was before the crisis.
The context for this work is extremely challenging. We have seen a disproportionate impact of coronavirus on different communities who now face acute challenges, with this crisis exposing long-standing inequalities. Our local economies and high streets have been particularly affected, and there are significant pressures on London councils, the GLA, TfL and others.
However it is also an opportunity – to reimagine our city and define our aspirations and priorities for the recovery effort. A city where we build on the fantastic community spirit displayed by Londoners during these toughest of times, to deliver a cleaner, greener and fairer city, and work to create thriving neighbourhoods, with improved wellbeing and access to a strengthened healthcare system.
To support the work of the Board I’ve also asked our intelligence team to undertake the important work of gathering views from Londoners. We can’t just deliver a top-down process but we’ve got to engage in meaningful dialogue with our citizens about the future of this city.
Involving the public is key to shaping what Assembly Member Duvall describes as ‘the new normal’.